The Role of Accountants in Decision-Making in Lebanese Firms

The issue of accountants＇ role in decision-making has been the center of attention of lots of studies in the last decade but never did it get the adequate coverage in Lebanon. This paper studies to what extent accountants are involved in the managerial decision-making in Lebanon. Two hundred experienced accountants from all over the country were randomly selected for a questionnaire survey. This survey provides evidence as to what factors contribute to the variance of influence accountants have in managerial decision-making. The results from the questionnaires varied, but we conclude that accountants＇ involvement in new product development （NPD）, the skills that accountants have, their role in the financial analysis of the firm, and how much the finn they work for encourages them to advice on business decisions affect the degree of contribution an accountant has to decision-making. The findings of this research could be used as a reference to help in understanding the role of accounting in Lebanon by various finns and organizations.     

Demand estimation for the Iranian automobile industry

The main contribution of this paper is a simple theoretical framework and empirical estimations explaining the behavior of the manufacturers. The paper focuses on the frequently used methods of demand estimation for discrete choice models to analyze the Iranian automobile market. It shows how both major companies in Iran choose to produce lower quality products and why they still collusively charge high markups. Empirical estimations are based on Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) to predict marginal costs and markups. Estimation results also support the hypothesis that manufacturers are charging high markups. In addition, the counterfactual analysis carried out supports the view that both duopolist firms prefer to operate at lower quality rather than at higher quality production levels. They also collusively price their products. Furthermore, analyses are performed using the Multinomial Logit methodology to better understand the Iranian automobile market. Tastes of people with different genders and ages for some specific cars are explained, and the effects of population changes on auto demand are predicted.     

Oil prices and exchange rates in oil-exporting countries: evidence from TAR and M-TAR models

The paper studies the long-run relation and short-run dynamics between real oil prices and real exchange rates in a sample of 13 oil-exporting countries. The purpose of the study is to examine the possibility of Dutch disease in these countries. Tests of cointegration using threshold and momentum-threshold autoregressive (TAR and M-TAR) models suggest the possibility of the disease in 3-out-of 13 countries??Bolivia, Mexico and Norway. For these countries, we also find that (a) oil prices have a long-run effect on the exchange rates; and (b) exchange rates adjust faster to positive deviations from the equilibrium; and (c) there is no evidence of short-run causality between real exchange rates and real oil prices in either direction. Over all, these findings suggest a weak link between oil prices and real exchange rates and thus limited evidence in favor of the Dutch disease.     

Aspects of second‐order analysis of structured inhomogeneous spatio‐temporal point processes

Statistical methodology for spatio‐temporal point processes is in its infancy. We consider second‐order analysis based on pair correlation functions and K‐functions for general inhomogeneous spatio‐temporal point processes and for inhomogeneous spatio‐temporal Cox processes. Assuming spatio‐temporal separability of the intensity function, we clarify different meanings of second‐order spatio‐temporal separability. One is second‐order spatio‐temporal independence and relates to log‐Gaussian Cox processes with an additive covariance structure of the underlying spatio‐temporal Gaussian process. Another concerns shot‐noise Cox processes with a separable spatio‐temporal covariance density. We propose diagnostic procedures for checking hypotheses of second‐order spatio‐temporal separability, which we apply on simulated and real data.     

Sustainable fisheries development in the tropics: trawlers and licence limitation in Malaysia

Sustainable fisheries development requires sound fisheries management. Area licence limitation programmes may form the cornerstone for most tropical multispecies fisheries management programmes. An empirical analysis of Peninsular Malaysian fishing trawlers is used to design an area licence limitation programme that conforms to the multiproduct production technology, and cost and revenue structures to best accommodate condtions of asymmetric information between the regulator and fishing vessels.     

Islamic Corporate Governance: Risk-Sharing and Islamic Preferred Shares

The recent financial crises (including the Asian and subprime crises) indicated the need to reinforce corporate governance mechanisms in emerging and developing market economies. Corporate governance refers to all the factors that affect firm processes (including, among others, financing strategies). Firms must avoid debt financing instruments and adopt financing instruments that allow for “risk-sharing” rather than “risk-shifting” because all recent financial crises were, in essence, debt crises. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the principles of risk-sharing promoted by Islamic finance and study their implications for corporate governance. The secondary objective of this paper is to propose a pricing model for a new risk-sharing financial instrument (Islamic preferred shares, IPS) that was recently discussed by Zarka and Al-Suhaibani (Shariah-compatible preference shares: The Sharia Basis and Economic Rationale. Working paper, SABIC Chair for Islamic Financial Market Studies, 2012). We study the implications of this new instrument as a powerful tool for corporate governance in the case of Islamic markets. We explain the possible contribution of IPS to agency cost reduction, Sharia screening costs and ethical corporate governance.     

Illegal trade in the Iranian economy: Evidence from a structural model

This study investigates the causes and consequences of import and export smuggling and estimates its relative size in Iran from 1970 to 2002. Multiple Indicators–Multiple Causes (MIMIC) modeling and trade misinvoicing are used to compute the latent variable of smuggling. The results indicate that the penalty rate for smuggling and the quality of economic and political institutions reduce smuggling, while tariffs and black market premia increase the incentives for illegal trade. More trade openness is associated with greater illegal trade in the case of Iran. On average, smuggling in Iran has been approximately 13% of total trade.     

Modeling economic and agro-environmental dynamics of potato production systems

Crop rotation and other input management practices are of particular interest for their potential impacts on economic and agro-environmental components of potato production. Although crop yield and experimental impacts of rotations of grains, oilseed and legume crops have been published for several experimental studies in Canada there are few models related to the economic and environmental dynamics of potato production. We describe a dynamic model which integrates environmental and economic processes in potato production. The potato rotation model consists of interconnected modules of irrigation and precipitation, soil characteristics, soil erosion, soil water, phosphorus, nitrogen, soil organic matter, farming operations, crop yield and the related calculation of economic return. While not all aspects of crop production have been interlinked, including nitrogen carry-over, this model is the first step in the analysis of experimental data for irrigated potato rotations conducted in southern Manitoba.      

U.S. industry-level returns and oil prices

This paper empirically investigates and provides further support for the oil price effect documented in Driesprong et al. (2008) in the U.S. industry-level returns. We find that oil price predictability is concentrated in a relatively small number of industry-level returns, the relevant measure for a study of the oil effect is percentage change in oil spot prices, and changes in oil futures prices have virtually no prediction power for industry-level returns. With percentage changes in oil spot prices as the predictor, approximately one fifth of industry returns are oil-predictable. We detect a two trading weeks delay in reaction to oil price changes which is consistent with the Hong and Stein (1996) underreaction hypothesis. These results are robust to various alternative specifications, and are shown to be unrelated to time-varying risk premia. Moreover, we demonstrate that trading strategies based on the oil effect generate superior gains in comparison with buy-and-hold strategy in the presence of reasonable trading costs.